Five Best Android Tablets

There are plenty of Android tablets to choose from these days. That doesn’t mean they’re all an equally good investment. This week we asked you which Android tablets you thought were the best of the best, and rounded up the top five based on reader nominations.

The Nexus 10 didn’t score the same degree of hype and excitement as its smaller 7-inch sibling, but that’s not because it’s a less powerful tablet. Manufactured by Samsung, the Nexus 10 packs a 10-inch 2560 by 1600 display, weighs just over 600 grams, and features a dual-core ARM Cortex A15 processor alongside a quad-core Mali T604 graphics processor. The Nexus 10 comes in 16GB and 32GB versions, features 5MP rear and 1.9MP front-facing cameras, and should give you 11 hours of battery life with normal use. The 16GB Wi-Fi model will set you back $469, while the 32GB model costs $569.

Samsung’s 10.1-inch Galaxy Note is the company’s flagship big-screen tablet, and is built to impress. It includes Samsung’s S-Pen stylus, and is packed with apps and built-in tools designed to make taking notes and using the tablet easy. It ships with Ice Cream Sandwich (and can be upgraded to Jelly Bean) as well Samsung’s Touchwiz UI overlay. The tablet packs a 10-inch 1280 by 800 display, has a 1.4GHz Exynos quad-core processor under the hood, and weighs about 620 grams. It has 5MP rear and 1.9MP front-facing cameras, and claims up to 10 hours of battery life.

The Google Nexus 7 was Google’s first Nexus-branded Android tablet. Manufactured by Asus, it ships with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Hardware-wise, it offers 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, a 7-inch 1280 by 800 display, weighs in at just 340 grams, sports a 1.2MP front-facing camera, and uses an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor. Claimed battery life is 10 hours. The 16GB Wi-Fi model will set you back $249, while the 32GB Wi-Fi model is $299.

If you loved the ASUS Transformer Prime (which topped our last poll of Android tablets), the Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 is the tablet for you. It’s a direct uplift from the Prime, and an improvement in almost every respect. The TF700 sports the clip-on full QWERTY keyboard and mobile dock that made the Prime so popular, and still weights in at under 600 grams. It sports a bright and beautiful 10.1-inch 1920 by 1200 display, and an Nvidia quad core Tegra 3 processor. The Infinity comes with Ice Cream Sandwich, features rear 8MP and front-facing 2MP cameras, a microSD card slot (on the mobile dock), and boasts 10 hours of battery life under normal conditions and a whopping 14 hours when connected to the dock. The one downside is that it’s overpriced in Australia — definitely worth shopping around if you’re keen on this model.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7-inch was Samsung’s original Android tablet. The current model offers Ice Cream Sandwich (which can be updated to Jelly Bean) and Samsung’s Touchwiz interface. It weighs around 12 ounces. The 7″ 1024 by 600 display is on the small side, but the tablet is extremely portable. It sports a 3MP rear camera, a dual-core TI OMAP processor, and comes with 8GB of internal storage. Shop around if you’re tempted by this model: it goes on sale fairly regularly at sub-$300 price points. (Samsung also offers 7.7-inch and 8.9-inch variants.)

Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favourite, even if it wasn’t included in the list? Tell us in the comments below.